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Joel Osborne writes

Posted Thursday, April 5th 2018 @BristolSportJO

It’s still the ‘Flyers way’ - Owen

Thursday, April 5th 2018

Roy Owen has praised interim boss Nick Burns for the job he is doing in the absence of Andreas Kapoulas.

Burns is halfway through his tenure as acting head coach for the Flyers and currently has an unbeaten record of 2-0 whilst Kapoulas is on international duty at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Flyers left it late to pick up a one point victory over Sheffield Sharks on Good Friday, but Owen credits his side’s defensive intensity down the stretch in maintaining Burns’ 100% winning record.

"We’ve had a lot of bad luck playing against Sheffield on Good Friday, but to finally go there and come back from being down by ten points in the fourth really says a lot about this team,” Owen told Bristol Flyers TV.

"We’ve been a pretty good half-court defensive team all season, but now we’re really starting to rely on it in tough moments."

“Nick’s been here for such a long time - he has a lot more experience than most people know and he’s doing great job. It’s slightly different to having Andreas around, but it’s still the same 'Flyers basketball’.

“The Flyers way has been installed by Andreas early in the season, and now we’re putting it all together whilst he’s away."

With a current record of 14-12 on the season, Flyers have an opportunity to take another step towards the BBL play-offs on Friday, when Manchester Giants visit a sold out SGS WISE Arena (7.30pm).

Despite picking up a 74-97 victory over Danny Byrne’s side in their previous meeting, Owen is well aware the Giants will be a much different side to the one they faced at the Trafford Sportsdome back in November.

"We looked at the scouting report and they have a lot of new players,” Owen added.

“We don’t have too much information on them, but they have nothing to lose and we know they’re going to turn up ready to play.

"It’s all about us at the moment, we want to make the play-offs, we want to finish in the top half and we want to have a winning record. These are the goals that we set at the start of the season and really it comes down to ‘right now’."